Sunday, June 7, 2015

"The Sultanate of Women (Turkish: Kadınlar Saltanatı) was the nearly 130-year period during the 16th and 17th centuries when the women of the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire exerted extraordinary political influence over state matters and over the (male) Ottoman sultan, starting from the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Many of the Sultans during this time were minors and it was their mothers, the Valide Sultans, or their wives, the Haseki Sultans, who effectively ruled the Empire. Most of these women were of slave origin, which was often the case in general for consorts of Ottoman sultans."

many royal Ottoman women were active correspondents, diz Marina Lushchenko

["Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness."
Pamuk em My Name is Red.]

"No, some people go to these … entertainments. I like melancholic things better." (Nure Bilge Ceylan)
"A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea". (Conrad)
"Fisicamente, habitamos um espaço, mas, sentimentalmente, somos habitados por uma memória.". (Saramago)